


Fool's Journey

by labocat



Category: Night Sun Tarot Deck
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 12:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8401348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/pseuds/labocat
Summary: The kid's having a nightmare again. One of the bad ones.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadow_lover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_lover/gifts).



The kid’s having a nightmare again. One of the bad ones.

One of the quiet ones.

Tarik sighs as he stokes the fire once more before getting up. He grabs the sword from where it’s propped up against their packs - his packs, really - and groans softly as he crouches down next to the boy, knees popping. He’s too young for this to be happening to him; maybe there’s some truth to the scoldings he’d gotten that he should be less reckless. He shakes the thought from his head at a soft noise from the kid and returns to his task: sliding the hilt of the sword into the boy’s hands, holding it next to his fists with their clenched white knuckles until they relax and he grasps the sword, pulling it to him and cradling it. Tarik watches as the furrows in his brow lessen and not for the first time wonders what the kid is dreaming about.

Not like he’d ever find out. The kid’s already got him pegged, already able to call him out when he’s bullshitting or exaggerating. Tarik figures he’s got some figured out too, knowing which eyebrow lift and head tilt meant _”tell me the_ real _story”_ and which meant that he wanted Tarik to continue. Maybe the kid was an excellent liar himself; Tarik’d never know. The kid seemed to understand him just fine when he talked, but lots of the nomad tribes understood multiple languages while he still fumbled through his own most of the time.

He wonders what he’s doing, letting the kid tag along, but really, he isn’t much of a nuisance. It’s been nice to have someone to talk to other than whichever horse they assigned him for patrol, almost a conversation. Especially since said horse this time behaved better around the kid than he ever had around Tarik. Damned animal favoritism.

The boy is still now, the stiff tension of his nightmares leeched away and Tarik has to resist the urge to push his bangs back or cover him up with a blanket. With all the blankets Tarik carried normally, it wasn’t a loss to give one to the kid. He’d still have been plenty warm, but the kid had caused a fuss, pushing it back into Tarik’s arms and smoothing down the feathers of his minimal cloak. Tarik had shivered just looking at him then, and shivers again now - the kid always sleeps further from the fire than Tarik would choose to - but resists. It’d only wake the kid up, and they can both use all the sleep they can get.

Tarik moves back to his own bedroll, as close to the fire as he can get without worry of his bedroll catching on fire, and falls asleep wondering how his wish for excitement got so twisted.

He’s woken by the sounds of breaking branches and men shouting. He’s up in an instant, one hand clutching the dagger under his bedroll and the other reaching out towards the fire, ready to call it in an instant. He looks towards the kid to warn him to be quiet - as if there’s any other state the kid is ever in - but there’s only a small clearing of leaves where he’d been curled up the night before.

Tarik hopes the kid ran, far and fast. It’s better than feeling sorry for himself, at any rate.

Three men break through the woods to come into the clearing, the tattoos on their wrists and eyelids marking them as thieves, bounty hunters, and worst of all, earth mages. Tarik silently thanks the Priestess for the intuition last night to build their fire larger than normal. He’d been sure he’d been given the wrong patron god for this round of patrols at the time, but he’s come to appreciate the nightly meditation. He hates to think that he could have been caught with only a dagger, especially since there is so much ruddy earth around for the bandits to draw from. At least the kid’s not here to see this.

“Where’s the boy?” one of the bandits asks. A yellow bandanna and the way the other two hang slightly back from him makes Tarik think he’s the leader. Tarik’s instantly on guard, even as he steels his expression to keep from looking at the spot where the kid had been just a few hours ago.

“What kid?” He’s hardly the best at playing innocent, but scornful arrogance he can do. “You really think I’d be travelling with a kid? That’d only slow me down; no brat’s worth the hassle of getting in trouble if I complete my patrols late.” He winces at giving so much away, but really, if the bandits had eyes - which he’s actually really not sure about the one on the far left, now that he looks closely - they’d be hard-pressed to miss the royal emblem stamped all over his horse’s tack as well as his packs. 

“Don’t give me that. We’ve got a source that says he was with you a day back and another says they saw your fire and him by it.” Fucking Justice, their larger fire had given them away. But thank the Wheel for it; the fire was still healthy and he hadn’t had a proper fight in ages. The bandit continues, “nothing in the forest, nowhere for a boy with no family to run to, so I reckon he’s still around. So where is he?” The bandit had been brandishing his own dagger at Tarik as he spoke, making Tarik roll his eyes. It was the only thing that saved him from giving away his surprise at the statement about the kid’s family. He’d guessed before - what kind of kid wandered the Windy Steppes on his own with no pack, especially clutching a sword like that other than one who’d recently lost everything - but the way the bandit said it, like concrete fact. Like he _knew_ something. He narrows his eyes at the bandit, dropping all pretense.

He shrugs, “dunno. Halfway out of the forest, if he’s lucky. Not like I’d tell you anything even if I knew, though.”

With that, he calls the fire to his left hand, whipping it out towards the trio and all hell breaks loose. Another five men break through the brush behind the original trio. Tarik’s lips bare into a sharp grin; he’s eager for a fight after so many days on the road. He can take eight of them; they aren’t water mages, for Fool’s sake. He’ll be fine.

He thins the stream of fire to a sharp edge, letting it wrap around his hand like another dagger and charges towards the bandits, his fire blade drying and shattering the earth wall one of them tries to hastily construct. Suddenly, the flames expand, scorching the earth at their feet and sending the bandits scrambling back. Tarik stays where he is, truly warm for the first time in weeks and can only watch as the kid drops from the trees, sword clutched in one hand, feathered cloak extending like wings.

It had been his mistake to assume the kid was only holding onto the sword for sentimental reasons. He’s frozen in place as the kid lands in a crouch and sweeps the sword outward toward the bandits clustered away from the wall of flames, catching two of their legs and severing their hamstrings in one strike. He’s already up and out of reach by the time any of them can react and lunge towards him, and Tarik is as stunned as the rest of them as the kid thrusts his blade cleanly through another’s chest, in and out and back before the bandit can even raise his blade to block him. 

There are only five left and Tarik finally remembers there’s nothing keeping him from helping. Even if it doesn’t seem like the kid needs it. He strides through the wall of flames, calling it into another wave to scorch the earth and render it unusable, raising his dagger as he plunges into the fray. 

 

There’s only the two who fell first left alive by the time Tarik comes back to himself; they’ve crawled to the tree line, leaving a trail of blood behind them. Even the poultices one of them has conjured from the earth between the tree’s roots won’t be enough. 

Tarik crouches down again and this time he covers his wince as his knees pop. “Who sent you?”

He gets a glob of spit to his face for his troubles. “Devil lead you astray. We ain’t no tattlers. ‘Sides, it’s not like you can protect that brat for long. Others than us’re looking for him, that’s for sure.”

Tarik turns to the other bandit with an, “are you going to be more helpful?”

The bandit shrugs. “Either way I’m dead, so’s I might as well keep my mouth shut and keep my honor.”

A grudging respect lodges in Tarik’s chest as he rises. “Fine. Let’s try something else. What do you know about the kid?”

He feels a tug at his sleeve. It’s the kid, his head bowed and looking entirely too innocent for someone who just killed five men. The kid shakes his head, just the tiniest bit, and Tarik looks back at the bandits. “Maybe you’ll be scared of him, if you aren’t afraid of me. I would be, at any rate.”

He turns and walks a few paces away. When he looks back, the kid’s hands are almost a blur, moving in shapes and patterns that Tarik finally recognizes as something he’s seen beggars do to communicate. One of the bandits seems to understand, his expression surprised and then softening just a touch before he hardens again and turns away from the kid. There’s a frustrated expression on the kid’s face, out of place with the calm and patient kid Tarik thought he knew. The other bandit shakes his head and Tarik knows, before the kid even moves, that it’s the end. 

The kid waves his hand, more of a slice than anything, and both of the bandits slump to the ground, blood running down their chests from the cuts to their throats.

Tarik walks up to the kid, smoothing down the feathers at the shoulders of his cloak. “The fire going crazy makes sense now. You could’ve told me you were an air mage, you know; I wouldn’t have held it against you.”

He laughs when the kid gives him the head tilt and eyebrow raise that lets him know he’s being a lying ass, just like he knew the statement would.

“But seriously, that’s useful. Let me know these things next time.”

The kid’s only response is to turn back towards where their horse and packs are still waiting, but Tarik can tell some of the tension has left his shoulders and his hands have stopped shaking at least.

 

They leave the forest a few days later. Tarik pulls the horse to a stop, staring at the wide, grassy plains before him. His patrol route continues along the border of the forest, but when he tries to turn the horse, the kid grabs his arm and points across the grassy sea.

“Uh-uh. My route’s this way and you have no idea the trouble I’ll be in if I’m not back on time.”

The kid only stares and Tarik can feel his resolve weakening with every blink the kid doesn’t take. There are so many questions he wants the answers to as well: who is this kid he’s adopted? Why are there bounty hunters after him? What happened to leave him wandering on his own? Why doesn’t he ever get cold, even without clothes?

Tarik glances at the sword strapped to the kid’s side; he’d taken a closer look at it when he could after their fight with the bandits, pulling it out from the scabbard for the first time and checking the edge, suspecting that the cleanliness of the sword’s strike was due to the kid’s air manipulation. He’d almost cut his thumb off.

He sighs, deep and heavy and rolls his eyes as the stallion turns from the patrol path and starts to pick a path through the tall grass. Overruled, he thinks. Oh well, at least if he dies then he won’t be in trouble with his commander.

As they continue towards the horizon, he turns back towards the boy. “If we’re going to do this, you are going to have to tell me your name. I can’t just keep calling you ‘boy’ and ‘kid’. Though I guess I could mix it up and throw in a few ‘brats’.”

Tarik laughs as he feels the kid’s knee jam into the back of his own. “Like right now. But maybe you could teach me that signing thing and then it won’t matter if I don’t speak your language, right?” He turns to see the kid looking pensive, then nod once. The kid’s hand rises, one finger out as if to point. Or trace.

Tarik starts at the first brush of wind against his palm, then settles as he realizes the kid is tracing a letter. “S...A...L...I...E...L...Saliel?” The kid shakes his head, hand waving in a way that dips then rises. Tarik tries again, putting the stress and a lift at the end of the name. A look of profound sadness flashes across the kid-- no, Saliel’s face before it vanishes and he smiles broadly up at Tarik.

Tarik nods and turns forward once again. “Well, Saliel, let our fool’s journey begin.”


End file.
